My Five #30

My Five: Five things worth sharing from the last week (or so), brought to you by a different member of the Browser Media team every Friday.

This week’s My Five is by Tom.

1. Google Glass

Google Glass is / are (?) making waves again this week. We’ve been talking etiquette; if someone turned up to the wedding I’m going to tomorrow wearing Google Glass, or came to the BBQ we’re having on Sunday (God I’m looking forward to the weekend), then they’d look like a bit of a dick. If they’re on their phone, they’re obviously distracted / being rude, but with Google Glass you won’t know! Will this change the way we have conversations?

With smartphones and tablets, it’s obvious that I’m picking up the internet and putting it in my face because you’re boring (not you). It’s a clear and tangible movement, ‘put your phone away we’re in a restaurant / wedding / police station’.

It’s a point of etiquette, but there are studies (somewhere, maybe) already linking a Dad on his smartphone with children not feeling valued – cue me feeling guilty and putting the tech away! But when / how will it become acceptable to be ‘always on’? ‘Put your books down and look at me kids’, ‘take your glasses off Dad’. We’ll discuss this in a little more detail in a separate blog post.

2. Constant content consumption

With AOL’s shift from video distribution into ‘Be On’ and the syndication of branded content, are we heading into an (even more) distracted world where multi-media-tasking is a constant? We’ve got the tech to be always on, so we need to feed the beast. But the lines between bought, owned and earned media are blurring (further).

As advertisers or inbound marketers (hello!) we’re looking at this content ubiquity as an opportunity, obviously. But inbound marketers need to approach this like media planners. As competition is ever-increasing for people’s attention, so the quality of content has to increase (which is a good thing) but we need to explore the human side of content consumption in order to make the most of clients’ words, pictures, music, videos. So when we talk about context of content, and audience targeting, we need to look at who we’re targeting and how they read, watch, listen to content. Getting into how much attention they’re paying to one channel (reading content) whilst watching TV or listening to music is going to be the fun part. If they share, do they care? Engagement is nice, conversion is better.

3. Holographic Skype Meetings

Will Take Place In The Near Future bit.ly/ZVRxhS < Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi…

4. Twitter Ads are now available to all in the US

It can’t be long before they roll this out to the UK / Europe. Again, paid engagement vs. earned media. The balance between a bought media campaign to promote owned media and the transition into earned media is ever-evolving. Exciting times for content-led marketing (which is just good marketing).